The One I Am Not Suppposed to Talk About

You know Fight Club. Almost everyone who's into movies knows about this cult classic. If you haven’t watched it, you should watch it first and then come back, you "shitty snowflake" who isn’t beautiful or special or unique.

But I’m not here to talk directly about the movie. I want to tell you a story about a guy named Edward. Edward was a decent guy, but he had one big problem in his life: he was 23 and had never had a girlfriend. So, one day, he decided he was going to get one.

Not such a bad thought—after all, he’d finally started earning a steady income and was living on his own for the first time. He had a mediocre job, earning a mediocre salary, buying mediocre things for his mediocre rented apartment.

With his newfound goal of wooing the opposite sex, he set out to improve himself. He researched and tried it all: texting tips, dressing better, communicating more confidently, picking up skincare routines, lifting weights—all the usual advice.

But the “gurus” on YouTube forgot to tell him that all of this takes real effort. And it takes time. Edward didn’t find a girlfriend immediately, nor even after all that work. His frustration only grew, day after day, as he saw little progress in finding a girlfriend despite his efforts.

Edward tried to research more. That’s when he stumbled upon the so-called “Red Pill.” These Red Pill gurus preached that women only care about a guy’s money and looks, that they’re not complex people who can look beyond these superficial things.

Edward thought, Just like I prefer an attractive woman, they prefer hot men with money. Nothing wrong with that, right? So, he became even more determined to be that “1%” guy. His hard work earned him a raise at his job. He started buying things that were a little better than just mediocre and pushed even harder at the gym. But the Red Pill guys forgot to tell him the same thing: being the 1% requires a whole lot of effort—and even more time. And they neglected to mention that women are not as simple as they made them out to be. Women are complex and capable of seeing beyond money and physical appearance.

After a few months of toiling, he’d had enough. He realized he would never be as buff as those “top” guys or make that kind of money. Whatever progress he’d made felt insignificant. So, he gave up on any hope of finding someone. He quit the gym, started doing the bare minimum at work, and let go of all that dressing up and skincare nonsense. He was “above” it now. He said things like, “Self-improvement is masturbation” and “I say, never be complete. I say, stop being perfect.”

But there was one thing he couldn’t escape: loneliness.

Frustrated, he dug deeper into online communities and found himself among the worst of the worst—the “Black Pill” crowd. This was a place where others had given up just like him. Here, the guys believed that no woman would ever accept them for who they were. It was hard to blame them, given that their experiences hadn’t been great, and fear-mongering on the internet didn’t help either. But if they’d actually tried talking to real women, things might have been different.

Instead, they only talked to each other, egging each other on in their misery, reminding one another that they weren’t beautiful and never would be. They mocked the idea of buying nice things or striving for anything better. Why should they? Their lives were already “pathetic.”

They argued over who had it worst, and one day, someone posted, “The whole system is rigged against us anyway. Why not burn it all down? Bring everyone down to our level.”

Edward had the same thought as the Narrator after reading that post: I want to destroy something beautiful.

And you know the rest!

Breaking Down For Dumb Snowflakes

Now, I think you understand my point. Even if you don’t, I’m going to say it explicitly. I agree with a lot of things Tyler Durden says—that we’re trapped by consumerism, that maybe our generation doesn’t have a big fight, that our fight is spiritual. But these men that Tyler collected are hopeless. Instead of improving themselves, they find losers just like themselves and, instead of working to improve the system like generations before them, they choose to burn it down through “Project Mayhem.”

If you think about it, they do have something to strive for—a better system, maybe. They just chose to be victims instead. They’re lonely, and I feel bad for them, but it’s hard to empathize when they choose victimhood.

Why do you think the Narrator feels better after going to support groups? Maybe because he feels a little less alone with them.

Why do you think he never had a real relationship with Marla until the very end? Because she represents a real relationship, something beyond his mindset because he’s too stuck in Tyler’s worldview.

All the people of Project Mayhem had so much potential given they were able to take a system down successfully, but they chose to become, as the Narrator puts it, “a copy of a copy of a copy.” And except for a few, that’s what they will always be.

Thanks for reading, and cut!